PS4 Remote Play PC to be released this week, will be a paid app

Developer Twisted, the creator of Remote Play PC (an app to use the PS4 Remote Play functionality on your PC), announced today that he will be releasing the first version of his app this Wednesday. There is a catch though: the app will not be free.

What is PS4 Remote Play PC?

The official version of PS4 Remote Play is limited to a tiny subset of Android devices: Sony XPeria smartphones and tablets. Twisted created an unofficial port of the Sony android app, and his mod enables PS4 Remote Play on most Android devices.

In parallel, Twisted has been working on a complete port of the PS4 Remote Play client for PC. This is the port that will be released this week.

Remote Play for PC will not be free

In a post on his blog today, Twisted announced that the PS4 Remote Play PC app will not be free. Although the final price needs to be confirmed, he is targeting a price point of approximately $10.

Some of you might get angry to learn that this will be a paid app. In particular on the hacking scene, we tend to assume such tools will be free, if not open source. But as a developer myself, I think it’s up to the dev to make that call, and it’s great for Twisted if he can make a living out of his work. In Twisted’s words:

I was planning on waiting until release to address this but I’ve seen it mentioned a few times and I don’t want to mislead anyone – I know a lot of you will be disappointed by this but I’m afraid Remote Play PC will not be free and you will be required to purchase it. Now before you all start shouting ‘Bloody money grabber! Release it for free!’ hear me out.

I’ve been working on this project mostly part time for over a year when the Android version was first released in October 2014. I’ve lost count the amount of hours I’ve put in over this time but I’ve enjoyed every moment working on this project which leads me onto my main point. I’d like to work on this project full time, adding features, getting it stable and porting it to other platforms which I know a lot of you want! The only way to support this is to charge for the app, all my previous projects have been free and I don’t want to have to but sadly its the only way to support my living costs. On the plus side this means I have more time to work on the project and provide support to its users, something which I’ve been limited on in the past.

But making the application a paid one could open a can of worms. First of all, users’ expectations change wildly for a paid app. People who buy Remote Play PC will expect it to actually work flawlessly. Beyond potential aggressive bug reports, I am worried of what happens the day Sony decides to increase security on their streaming system, and block Remote Play PC. Do users get a refund at that point?

Additionally, the legal status of Remote Play PC is unclear to me. Twisted has himself admitted that his Remote Play app is the result of reverse-engineering Sony’s official Android client (Update: I cannot find any statement about this anymore. Twisted has mentioned that the PC Remote play was a parallel project, not that it was directly the result of reverse engineering. I still think however that the two projects being linked are an issue, as there’s no doubt some level of reverse engineering of the PS4 streaming protocol was required, + breaking some of the encryption). In general, distributing such work is prohibited in most countries, and adding a “paid” aspect to it could be adding fuel to the fire. I feel that Twisted could easily get a “cease and desist” from Sony, and that would be the end of it. Users will be left in the cold.

This doesn’t mean the project is any less exciting than it was when Twisted first announced it. I can’t wait to try PS4 Remote Play PC, personally.

What do you guys think? Is it a good or a bad move to make it a paid app?

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wololo

We are constantly looking for guest bloggers at wololo.net. If you like to write, and have a strong interest in the console hacking scene, contact me either with a comment here, or in a PM on /talk!

69 Responses

Well let this man take money for his work. You don’t order a hamburger at McDonalds and shout “YOU GREEDY FCK, GIVE ME THE BURGER FOR FREE!”, don’ t you ? Programming and proper developing requires ALOT of skill and in our sociaty skill = money. I won’t buy the app because i don’t really see the point of it but he really should just contact Sony and ask about the legal case and whether it is fine to realese it for money.

Hello guy, The lack of understanding here is clearly a downfall in the community. To those screaming “sony will C+D him”, Your wrong sony will only c+d if it affects their profits ie like enabling piracy. Regardless the case would have no basis as the only similarity between the pc app and the android app are the communication protocols there’s nothing else which is the same. These would always be the same as they have one source, the ps4.

So basically he isn’t selling code from sony. He is selling a unique program which interacts with the ps4.

The price tag of $10 is a fair price, and if were going to be honest it should be higher.

As a person who previously worked on the PSP and PS3. It’s obvious why i quit, the homebrew scene is full of kids.

As a closing statement i would like everyone to take what they read with a pinch of salt.

I don’t see how everyone’s issues with this are relevant. Unless Sony is intending to provide a paid app themselves (and costing more than $10) for PS4 to Pc streaming they shouldn’t have too much of an issue with it; if Sony releases a free app, people will flock to that over the $10 unofficial anyway. If Sony doesn’t release an app (free or paid), this ability of streaming to Pc doesn’t affect their sales in the slightest (maybe except for controller sales?) as a PS4 and Games are still required for it to work. Also, to those complaining that it costs $10, get a job and get out of your parents basement and then you might appreciate the fact that time and effort is actually worth something. $10 is not too much to say thank you to Twisted for all the work he’s done to get this working.

I dont really understand where all this discussion and conflict is spawning from. Imho Twisted is allowed to charge for the work that he does, especially when all that spent time causes him financial distress. People like Twisted and Wololo enable the rest of us that dont have the knowledge, so be a little more respectful. They have already done more than enough for this community without demanding anything in return. Now, if this development is grounds for a suit, thats purely Twisteds problem and i personally dont concern myself with it. Most of us spend $10 or more, on bs in a daily basis, so thats not a very big deal. For the ones that want to spend it good, for the ones that dont then by all means dont. But i think that spending $10 to do something that u always thought “why the f*** is this not available already” even for only a couple of weeks, it could be worth it considering all the other bs we spend our money on.

Fyy: from an IT professional, the skills that these guys have are in very high demand, and very highly paid i might add. So dont think they owe us anything…..

[…] Sony will let this slide before issuing a cease and desist. As homebrew and console hacking site Wololo points out, folks who pay for the app could be out their hard-earned money if the company steps in and shuts […]

[…] Twisted released an unofficial Remote Play app for Windows yesterday. The release generated some controversy, in particular because he decided to make it a paid app, raising concerns on our end that this […]

[…] any better than this and is probably worth the $10 if you have a use for Remote Play on your PC. As I mentioned before, I’m still very concerned that Sony could decide to go after Twisted with a cease and desist or […]

[…] Sony will let this slide before issuing a cease and desist. As homebrew and console hacking site Wololo points out, folks who pay for the app could be out their hard-earned money if the company steps in and shuts […]

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